why i like william shatner

 

Since you made the trip —

[and it may have been a long trip too there is a string of links behind this new blog] I figure I better post something clever or entertaining here to make it worth your while. Unfortunately it is 3:30 am and I am not clever or entertaining mostly I am wide eyed with hair sticking up in unfortunate ways surrounded by too many caffiene enriched empty diet soda cans. But, lucky you, I have been clever AND entertaining in the past [yeah I tell myself that] so I am pirating one of my favorite essays and posting it here for you:

why i like william shatner
by your favorite adams girl

I had this anthropology professor in college, Betil Kunzler Yetz. ( I hope I am spelling that right because I could not even spell that right when I was in her classes.) Betil was tiny. I towered over her and I am only 5′ 6″ when I stand really tall so she could not have been over 5 feet and was maybe even tinier. In my memory she is always in pearls with her hair coifed in little black curls and she has on perfect red lipstick that never comes off ever. And dresses. Betil always wore dresses and the skirts were always proper just below the knee.

Betil was a physical anthropologist and her specialties were forensic science and primatology. It was funny to me listening to tiny Betil talk about heading to Las Vegas to identify the latest body they pulled out of sand. (Bury a body in Las Vegas sand and in two days you have a skeleton that looks a hundred years old so you need a real scientist to tell you how old this person was and what gender and what was cause of death. People in the “know” know this too because police pull a LOT of unidentifiable bodies out of that Las Vegas sand.) I always wondered what sturdy police and FBI guys thought when they saw this tiny Betil woman get off a plane in pearls and a proper skirt and say “Okay, show me the body.”

Betil also worked with zoos all over and would tell stories about lemurs. Lemurs are my favorite primates. They have masks and prehensile tails. And when lemurs get excited, well, they get real excited all at once — mostly in the air over your head — and after working in lemur cages Betil’s husband would not even let her in a car without hosing her off first and I bet they are super happy someone invented Fabreeze finally which really works. But lemurs are not the only primates. Gorillas are primates too. And Betil told us a Koko story.

Koko is a gorilla who speaks sign language and she had a pet kitten named “Ball.” She has been in news lots and even did a chat on AOL so she is a celebrity gorilla and lots of people have heard of her. One day Koko’s trainers decided to mate Koko. And they contacted all the zoos with male gorillas and the male gorillas got spruced and flew out to meet Koko. And Koko said forget it. To each and every one of them.

Everyone was perplexed because, well, these were the most elligible bachelor gorillas in the world Koko was turning down. And I guess as far as gorillas go, they looked good. To us. Not to Koko. But no one really understands girl gorilla criteria when it comes to bachelor gorillas or who girl gorillas like or why. (A lot of guy scientists in the brush pretend they do and write big papers on it but they do not even understand their own girlfriends let alone girls of another species so don’t believe them for a second they are making it up.)

Unlike other girl gorillas, though, Koko understands English and can sign so they could ask her. So that is what they did. They asked Koko why she was turning away all these gorilla callers who were so elligible and handsome and came all this way to woo her. And Koko told them Koko didn’t like those gorilla boys no matter how elligible they were because Koko was saving herself for her big crush. And they said, Well, who is your big crush, Koko? And Koko said —

“William Shatner.”

Okay. William Shatner was married and also not a gorilla so that was a problem. But Koko liked William Shatner and that was that, it was William Shatner or no one for her so there went the “let’s breed Koko” plan. And it could have ended right there. Could have, but didn’t. Because —

William Shatner heard about it. Heard about how Koko had this big crush on him and would not even talk to boy gorillas because she was crushy on William Shatner.

I do not know what most men’s reaction to a 300 pound gorilla having a crush on them would be. But I know William Shatner’s. He learned sign language. And sign is not easy, either, it is a whole language just on its own. But William Shatner learned it. And met with Koko. Got in a room with a 300 pound girl gorilla who had a crush on him — so he could let her down easy.

I will always love William Shatner for that. For learning sign so he could talk to a girl gorilla to let her down easy.

Love and Kisses,

Your Sometimes Clever AND Entertaining Adams Girl